The philosophies of men mingled with the philosophies of women.

Clothing Ourselves in Christ

This week I was reading in Galatians and ran across the following comment made by Paul:

As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise.Galatians 3:27-29

I thought the phrase “clothed yourselves with Christ” was an interesting one. The Greek word underlying the English “clothed” means to put on, or wear, clothes. It is also used metaphorically within the LXX, Irenaeus, and other sources to indicate taking on the traits of something, such as “taking on” the power of the spirit.

In Romans 13:11-14 Paul talks about believers awaking from a slumber, laying aside their previous works of darkness and sin, and:

Instead, put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.

Again, believers are asked to clothe themselves with Christ as compared to their previous actions indicative of someone spiritually asleep.

The metaphorical use of clothing oneself with Christ seems to urge us to take on the traits of Christ, similar to how an actor puts on the clothes and trappings of the character they play, “becoming” that character. We should be indistinguishable from Christ.

This phrase is also used in Acts 12:21, speaking of Herod putting on his royal robes prior to delivering a public address. He put on his royal robes as the symbol of his place within his kingdom. Only he was the king. Interestingly, when Paul is asking us to clothe ourselves in Christ, we are in effect being asked to put on the royal robe of our king. As a result, it seems that we then become heirs of the very same promises made to him (see my quote of Galatians earlier in this post). That seems to me like a pretty powerful metaphor that should bring hope and strength to our daily lives.

What do you think it means to clothe ourselves with Christ?

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Published by Cody Hatch

I'm the husband of an amazing woman and father of three incredible children. I work in the fields of information security and machine learning. I grew up Mormon but have since joined the Episcopal Church. I enjoy science, history, travel, and sports car endurance racing.
If you'd like to respond to me outside of the comments, you can do so via email using my first name at wheatandtares.org.
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12 thoughts on “Clothing Ourselves in Christ”

The first thing that comes to my mind is “fake it ’till you make it”. That sounds awful, but years ago I wrote a post (https://bycommonconsent.com/2010/07/20/the-case-for-hypocrisy/) as sort of a response to accusations of hypocrisy of people I felt were trying hard to “put on… Christ”, and weren’t quite there. Or even close. It got a bit of a negative response, and my thinking has evolved a bit since then… but still. Anybody trying to “put on… Christ” is aspiring to put on clothes a bit too big for them, so to speak, but I think that’s what we need to do.

Hi Martin, I once heard a wonderful refutation of calling a person a hypocrite who isn’t following their own council, especially with regards to be a parent or clergy.

They said, A person that can’t follow their own council isn’t necessarily a hypocrite, they’re a human with their own failings.

A hypocrite is when they excuse that behavior as “ok” because those rules don’t apply to them.
e.g. “don’t watch violent movies with swearing because it pollutes your brain. But I’m ok to watch them because I’m an adult.”
Well, you’re still polluting your brain.

Vs “Yeah, I shouldn’t watch this but I’m a sucker for a good action movie”

The post made me think of the hebrew meaning of the atonement, which means to cover. Jacob in 2 Nephi 9 makes it very clear that the righteous are clothed the robes of righteousness, but the wicked stand naked before God.

I’m going to say that it means to identify with Christ and be identified by him.

If this dates from the King James version it would be in roughly the same era as the Sumptuary Laws that decreed that colors, fabrics, furniture, style in general should be related to social status. I believe they were quite specific regarding clothing so that everyone knew where they fit in the hierarchy whether they were acquainted or not.

The thing about clothing is that in the normal sense you put it on and take it off and it doesn’t really change the person inside. It may change others’ view of the person though (a police officer in uniform will be treated differently than one in plain clothes). We also use clothing as cultural identifiers. Clothing oneself in Christ could be seen as a way to identify ourselves (to ourselves, to others?) as disciples.

But that doesn’t seem to be what the scripture in Galatians is saying. There, the clothing changes the persons ethnicity (no longer Roman or Jew), societal status (slave or free) and gender (male or female). These are pretty inherent characteristics (even the slave/free, for the time period) so that there are then zero meaninful differences between individuals in their discipleship.

That’s super interesting, on two fronts. First with how in contrasts with Mormon thought where you become a disciple by full-fulling your ethnicity (Tribe of Abraham adoption) and gender role, according to the proc.

Second, Clothing oneself in Christ isn’t about identifiers or authority, but about that innate, inner change that happens to the individual. The clothing changes the wearer in profound ways.

Here in North America we prefer to buy cheap stuff, including clothing, rather than spend our money on quality merchandise. Socks, t-shirts, jeans, shirts, you name it. Almost all this stuff comes from developing countries where it’s manufactured by near-slave labor, as well. We buy it (considering only our immediate purchase price), wear it a short while, then throw it away. Maybe we even give it to thrift stores, which actually bundle most of it up and send it back to those same developing countries where these now-rags are repurposed into more cheap stuff.

How different this wonderful image of clothing ourselves with Christ! Can there be anything more valuable, more lasting, of higher quality?